What do the Beatles believe? [View all]

Very interesting article. I couldn't find any errors. Some speculation, but he clearly says so.

The Beatles’ Religion Was Here, There and Everywhere

Much is made of the flirtations of the Fab Four with Eastern religions of one sort or another and the resultant iconic images of the four musicians in India on retreat. Little is made of the band’s Christian roots. Two of the band, Paul McCartney and George Harrison, were both baptized Catholic; John Lennon and Ringo Starr were Anglicans.

It would be fair to say that the Christian influence on the four men’s upbringing was negligible. The word “nominal” barely covers it. All four were part of postwar Britain, one not noted for religious fervor. In fact, by 1960s the country was increasingly secular. Religion was relegated to the private sphere. It was often noted that, unlike in, say, Ireland or America, an Englishman who was perceived as religious was exceptional, often thought of as eccentric.

So, in 1960s, it was unsurprising that during interviews The Beatles talked of their bafflement at the overt religiosity of the United States. Furthermore, the comments made to a London journalist by Lennon about the pop group being “more popular than Jesus” caused no stir when published in a British newspaper in March 1966. Lennon’s comments made him sound more pantheist than Christian. The remarks were received very differently across the Atlantic — so much so that due to the angry backlash against these remarks Lennon had to try and rationalize and downplay what he had said. The problem was not so much that Lennon had set out to offend Christians in his comments but that in the society — and particularly the artistic world — in which he moved, religion in general, and Christianity in particular, was now simply an irrelevance.

In fact, very early on and emphatically, The Beatles had declared themselves agnostic. Religion was not something they wished to spend time discussing. Yet all this was to change in 1966 when Harrison and his then wife, Patti Boyd, visited India. Harrison had already been drawn to the music of India. Now, partly through the influence of his wife, he became equally attracted to the world of Hinduism and its then à la mode form found in the West — the Hare Krishna Movement. This attraction inevitably spread to the other three Beatles and their wider entourage.

more http://m.ncregister.com/blog/kturley/the-beatles-religion-here-there-and-everywhere